Sociolinguistics Varieties of Language

2.2 Concept

The concepts of this study focused on Language Varieties, they are pidginized English and Standard English from sociolinguistics. This study considered about silver shop attendants. Therefore, there is an additional concept shop attendants. The concepts contained the definitions related to this study. They are as follows:

2.2.1 Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is very important nowadays because it concerns about how the language is used in society. Hudson 1996:4 has described the definition of sociolinguistics as ‘the study of language in relation to society’. Since it considers about the usage of language in society, it means that either a new language or modified language will be indentified. Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society. It differs from sociology of language in terms of relation between language and society. Sociolinguistics concerns about the effect of the society on the language, while the sociology of language focuses on languages effect on the society. In considerable degree, Sociolinguistics overlaps with Pragmatics. Historically, it is also closely related to linguistic anthropology.

2.2.2 Varieties of Language

Over half the world’s population is bilingual and many people are multilingual. They acquire a number of languages because they need them for different purposes in their everyday interactions. Hudson 1996:22 defines a variety of language as ‘a set of linguistic items with similar distribution’. Another name for variety is lect which means language cluster. Variety may include dialects, registers, styles or other forms of the language, as well as the standard variety itself. The term Variety avoids ambiguity. People only associate term language to standard language and term dialect to the non- standard varieties. Non-standard varieties thought of as less prestigious or ‘correct’ than the standard and to avoid misunderstanding and ambiguity the term lect is used. This term will help decide whether or not two varieties are distinct languages or dialects of a single language.

2.2.3 Languages